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This blog originally founded by Blogger who holds a theological degree and a doctorate in Counseling Psychology. Taught Psychology for 32 years and is now Professor Emeritus. Is a board-certified psychologist and was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award in his profession. Ministered as a chaplain, and pastored Baptist and Episcopal churches. Publications cover the integration of psychology and theology. Served in the Army, the Merchant Marines and the Peace Corps.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Liberal Thinking

58 comments:

Johnny Rico
said...

So true. The Town of Blowing Rock banned guns in parks. During discussions, they made the jump from keeping criminals from having guns to preventing law abiding folks from carrying guns because an accident might happen that would injure a kid! Amazing incompetance from the left. They actually made a law based on the possibility of an accident even though no such accidents have occured nationwide. What a bunch of dolts. It will only get worse folks, not better. The liberals are kicking some butt these days. The schools pump out future liberals by the millions, and colleges finish off the job with professors who think they need to retain pay after being imprisioned in a foreign country for trafficking drugs!

Liberal socialist sheep love to make new laws. Then, like the hypocrites they are, whine and scream that the United States has the highest per capita prison population on the planet! What a bunch of dolts.

Here's a piece of liberal lawmaking that will set your shorts on fire:

Conservatives claim the government will never confiscate guns and if they did, people would resist.

Hogwash. People won't resist. Look no further than New Jersey or California which outlawed assault weapons. People went along with it without so much as a whimper. In a world where police can taser 7 years olds with impunity, do you really think anyone will not give up their guns when asked? If the liberals like Hussein Obama really knew how sheep like the people really were, he would do it by executive order tomorrow.

Johnny, you are correct in the fact most people will not resist. The problem the government would have is that some would and a good portion of those that would will be very proficient, as in ex military.

" Amazing incompetance from the left. They actually made a law based on the possibility of an accident even though no such accidents have occured nationwide." --JR

While incredibly false, we'll move on to this fact.....the accidental firearms injury rate in the US is 4.5 per 100,000. In Canada, it is 0.14 per 100,000. The accidental firearms death rate is 0.6 per 100,000 in the US and 0.1 per 100,000 in Canada.

While incredibly false, we'll move on to this fact.....the accidental firearms injury rate in the US is 4.5 per 100,000. In Canada, it is 0.14 per 100,000. The accidental firearms death rate is 0.6 per 100,000 in the US and 0.1 per 100,000 in Canada. Why?

Because the United States has many more guns per 100,000 than Canada. As a matter of fact, Canada just abandoned a gun registration system on which they wasted over a billion dollars. Also, accidental gun deaths in the United States have been falling while gun ownership is rising, partially thanks to the best gun salesman of all time, Barack Obama.

I said concealed weapons holders carrying guns in parks, not the overall accident rate which is irrelevant. There is not one activity that won't see an accident. Do you want to ban all activities now? Swimming pools kill more children each year than gun accidents. Do you want to ban pools.

the accidental firearms injury rate in the US is 4.5 per 100,000. In Canada, it is 0.14 per 100,000. The accidental firearms death rate is 0.6 per 100,000 in the US and 0.1 per 100,000 in Canada. Why?

"Because the United States has many more guns per 100,000 than Canada." -Guy

That's true, the US has more firearms than Canada. But that doesn't explain the discrepancy. To illustrate this, let's isolate the numbers to just gun owners.

There are approximately 70 million unique gun owners in the US, Canada has about 4 million. (There are a lot more guns, about 4 per US owner and 2.5 per Canadian owner, but we'll assume that an accidental shooting wouldn't occur with all 4 of your guns, all at the same time)

So zeroing in on gun owners, here are the numbers:

Accidental death rates (from firearms) are 2.6 per 100,000 in the US and 0.85 per 100,000 in Canada.

Accidental Injury rates (from firearms) are 20 per 100,000 in the US and 1.2 per 100,000 in Canada.

The simple number of guns in the US does not explain the differences in accidental shootings between the two countries. So again, why the stark difference?

Because, there is a statical probability that there would be more accidents just as more crimes are stopped by a private citizen with a gun in the united States than are in Canada. This has been thwarted to large degree by gun safety programs in schools such as the Eddie Eagle program.

"Because, there is a statical [sic] probability that there would be more accidents" -Guy

But I'm asking why there are more accidents per gun owner in the US than there are per gun owner in Canada.

"The slight possibility of being a victim of an accident with a gun is as irrelevant as the much larger possibility of being the victim of an accident in a car. " -Guy

You realize, though, that motorized vehicles are heavily regulated and safeguarded. There are literally thousands of safety devices within each vehicle. From crumple zones to airbags to ABS. There are seatbelt laws. There are laws of the road. There are stoplights and traffic signs. And, most damaging to your argument, you can't simply drive your car anywhere you want, there exist "car-free zones", if you will.

Jeananie Rica, I am glad you agree that accidents in a car are irrelevant to the discussion as are gun related accidents in a discussion on crime. Why did you bring accidents into the discussion in the first place?

Do you have any knowledge about guns and the safety features they contain?

LPOV, have you had a sex change? Does that effect your support of pedophilia?

On the other hand, LPOV does not have the writing skills of this lady, so it is more probable that they only share the same "change the subject" tactics.

Do YOU have a theory? What is the purpose of asking, I wonder? Your numbers are actually a bit unclear - the numbers per 100,000 - is that per 100,000 gunowners or total population? What percentage of the population in each country own guns? I'm asking because I don't know, but I suspect that, as is normally the case, accidental death stats would be per 100,000 of the total population and that a significantly higher percentage of American households have guns. Your questions insinuate that you have a point to make eventually - why not just give us your theory on the differences and stop wasting time. Or perhaps you have no clue but enjoy making vague statements of innuendo.

Nobody, there are a number of possible theories as to why Americans seem to accidentally shoot each more so than equally armed Canadians. I'm not sure which would be most plausible. Apparently no one here is interested in discussing why American gun owners seem to think of themselves as Dirty Harry.

The first injury/death rates were per 100,000 of total population. Guy posited that the differences in the rates was due to the much higher number of firearms in the US. So the second injury/death rates were per 100,000 gun owners. And again, we see a large discrepancy between the two countries.

The bottom line is that Americans have a lot of accidents when it comes to our guns. This line of discussion was precipitated by Johnny Rico claiming that "no accidents have occurred nationwide". They have, and in unacceptably large numbers.

Now the anti-USA anger rears its ugly head. Tells us what we think canook. Canook- A Canadian and all that it implies. Usually a raging liberal and coward. A self-conscious prig that is so lost in liberalism that they are incapable of action. A parasitic leach that enjoys the freedom afforded them by better men (their stronger southern neighbors)than themselves.

"There are approximately 70 million unique gun owners in the US, Canada has about 4 million. (There are a lot more guns, about 4 per US owner and 2.5 per Canadian owner, but we'll assume that an accidental shooting wouldn't occur with all 4 of your guns, all at the same time)"

Typical liberals engineering statistics to fit their gun control mantra. 300 million guns in circulation right now in the United States. And we DO need to account for each one of those guns in this study because anyone can be the accident of a gun, not just gun owners. This is where your already skewed statistics become even more skewed. Between 400-600 accidental gun deaths each year (lowest in 60 years). With 300 million guns, the accidental rate of gun deaths is far, far below that of Canada.

You see, it is possible for those that don't own guns to injure themselves with guns. In fact, a small subset of the population seems to account for a significant portion of accidental gun deaths. Inner city gang members, most of whom are prohibited from possessing guns, have many "accidents". Without this subset skewing the numbers, US accidental gun deaths would be far lower than they already are. So, with 400 accidental gun deaths per year, in a country with 300 million guns and 250 million citizens (not counting the 40 million illegal aliens)you can see the United States is one of the safest countries in regards to gun deaths. On the average we have .0013 gun deaths per gun per year. A very low number indeed.

The simple fact that gun owners carry and use their guns more in the U.S. than in Canada helps explain why our numbers of accidents are so much lower. In Canada, with the exception of rifles during hunting season, the carrying and use of firearms is forbidden. In the US, with firearms training classes and hunter safety courses, we have become a nation of expert gun owners which expains why we have only 400 gun accidents per 300 million guns.

Liberals love to use fuzzy math to harass gun owners. Happily dumb, upon being beaten so bad on the vent page, is trying the same tired and worn out comments on guns. Gets old after a while.

"Apparently no one here is interested in discussing why American gun owners seem to think of themselves as Dirty Harry."

And here we have it. The anti-gun mantra just couldn't help but come out.

What you meant to say, is why American gun owners seem to think of themselves as freedom thinking, individuals intent on self preservation from liberals, occupy wall street protestors and communists such as yourself.

American gun owners dont' apologize for personal responsibility. That's what makes it so hard for liberal sheep (you) to understand. Dirty Harry is someone we value. He is obviously someone you don't. Why wouldn't you like a Dirty Harry walking around exercising personal responsibility? LOL!!

The bottom line is, the United States has the fewest number of gun accidents, per capita, in the world. The arguement was precipitated by the fact that I said there were no gun accidents in local parks that Blowing Rock gun prohibitionists could draw from to sanely ban guns in parks.

Like a true liberal socialist sheep, our Canadian lover tried to use the worn out gun accidents numbers which, time and again, have been proven wrong.

Again, with no accidents in local parks, nationwide, why would a local unit of government create a gun free zone based on the slim to none chance that an accident might occur? Typical liberal thinking.

Johnny, again, your numbers are way off. I know you won't substantiate your claims, so I won't even bother to ask.

The reality is that there were about 1,800 accidental firearm deaths and 14,000 accidental firearm injuries, according to the latest data from the CDC.

There are approximately 270 million guns in the US, held by about 70 million people. There are millions of people who own dozens of guns each. As I said before, an accidental shooting is not going to occur with one's 8 guns, simultaneously. So the incidence rate per 100,000 gun owners is much more representative.

The US has a terrible record of gun safety. My "Dirty Harry" comment speaks to that issue. There seems to be a pervasive attitude that any crime can be effectively stopped by any armed citizen. The truth of the matter is that too many gun owners are not properly trained. Even fewer have combat/conflict training. In a chaotic situation, it is much more likely that an untrained citizen will cause more harm than less due to this lack of training and experience.

There is nothing wrong with owning firearms, but you must own them responsibly. Too many Americans do not do that and our unacceptable accidental injury/death rate illustrates that.

Jack, nobody but you is suggesting that someone would have to be injured by all 8 guns of an owner for it to count as a gun accident If any one of the guns were involved in an accidental death or injury, that would be one injury for that gun!

You haven't changed anything but your name, huh? Still as obtuse as ever!

What? You can call me whatever name you'd like, but your argument makes absolutely no sense.

An accident occurs due to a gun owner's irresponsible actions (or inactions). Therefore, accident rate per gun owner, not per gun. Unless you are suggesting that the guns themselves are somehow taking to the street and causing their own accidents.

"Johnny, again, your numbers are way off. I know you won't substantiate your claims, so I won't even bother to ask.

Yack/HD, YOUR numbers are way off and I see no substantiation in anything you say. You won't bother to ask me anything because you understand it makes you look silly. LOL!! Go ahead and ask. 300 million guns and 200 million Americans in this country is a simple equation for most. Not sure how you're trying to spin this, but the United States is the safest country in the world with guns despite the gangbangers and inner city thugs that you try and protect. If Americans were better armed, even these gangbanger types would't stand a chance. Switzland is a great example (homogenity).

Then you go on to blabber about: "There are approximately 270 million guns in the US, held by about 70 million people".

Listen, again, very closely idiot. 70 million people own those 300 million guns, however we look at the entire population as firearms accidents happen to non gun owners as well. I went over this, in detail, yet you try and eschew the obvious. You must use the total number of citizens in your fuzzy math because non-gun owners have accidents too ( just like kids are involved in car accidents when they don't drive or own cars). Simple concept, pay attention. Therefore, the total number of accidents per the entire population is far more representative than carving out smaller units based on nothing more than your misguided opinion. LOL!!!

Here's a good one:

"The US has a terrible record of gun safety. My "Dirty Harry" comment speaks to that issue"

It does? Dirty Harry didn't have any firearms accidents in any of the Dirty Harry movies. He was extremely proficient with "the most powerful handgun in the world" (at that time). He did excellant on the shooting range in "The Enforcer" and made some incredible shots on bad guys. So, no, you do not represent gun accidents very well with Dirty Harry. A better figure to represent gun accidents with is the DEA Agent who shot himself in front of elemtary students a few years ago. YouTube it and see the liberal idiot as he shoots himself. Liberals make fine posterchildren for gun accidents because ya'll are so stoooopid. LOL!!

It gets better:

" There seems to be a pervasive attitude that any crime can be effectively stopped by any armed citizen."

It's not a pervasive attitude but a fact. Dr John Lott, in his book entitled "More Guns, Less Crime" details how gun owners stop in upwards of a million crimes a year with, you guessed it, guns. I know of 3 elderly citizens stopping armed, violent criminals in the past month alone (one senior shot a hooligan armed with a rifle from 150 feet, 4 times with his pistol as the hooligan was attacking police. Even the police were impressed). An armed society is a polite society.

A typically stupid statement by a liberal socialist sheep is as follows:

"The truth of the matter is that too many gun owners are not properly trained. Even fewer have combat/conflict training"

Who said it was the truth? You? Who made you an all knowing God? A tin god perhaps!! LOL! Here in the United States, we have something called the 2nd Amendment. This Amendment to the Constitution doesn't say anything about needing training to own and operate a gun. It's not a hard concept. Does the 1st Amendment require training? What about the 4th Amendment. Requiring training to exercise a God-given, inalienable right is akin to communism. Then again, you dolts on the left are fully immersed in communism. LOL!!! As for conflict management, why do I need training in that? That's what my trusty gun is for you idiot!! It should be the bad guys worried about deconfliction. You sound like Eurotrash with an inane statement like that.

Another utterly fabricated statement by the fringe left:

"In a chaotic situation, it is much more likely that an untrained citizen will cause more harm than less due to this lack of training and experience"

And where did you come by this bit of golden knowledge? History has not proven this to be the case. No evidence exists to substantiate your claim. Name one situation in which an armed individual made the situation worse by having a gun. Let me ask you, dolt; had the citizens been allowed to exercise their 2nd Amendment Rights on the hijacked 9/11 airliners, do you think it could've e turned out ANY WORSE? What about Virginia Tech? This ought to be interesting!!!!! Your conjecture and elitism have gotten the best of you once again my friend. Typical liberal socialist sheep.

You see, Yack/HD, I would rather live with 1000 firearms accidents per 10,000 people and be free than 0 accidents and be enslaved to elitest do gooders such as yourself.

Some of us value something called freedom and liberty. We see it as the endgame here in the United States. Those who disagree with this concept most typically are liberals (you) intent on destroying the very societal system which gave you everything you currently have. Perhaps if you would quit sucking off my hard earned taxpayer money and start exercising a little personal responsibility, then you might become a productive member of society.

We've handed it to Happily Dumb/Yack/Jeannie to the point the grasp. It's funny that liberals can't help but inject emotion into arguements to the point that it invalidate all they want to say. Perhaps this is part of the liberal disease that plauges them. LOL!!!

"You must use the total number of citizens in your fuzzy math because non-gun owners have accidents too" -JR

I agree, and that's the first statistic I presented. Guy didn't like it, so I recalculated using just gun owners. The point of it being you can't use rate calculate per gun, as the guns themselves do not cause the accident.

"Dr John Lott, in his book entitled...." -JR

Funny. Dr. Lott has been shown to be an unethical hack. The book that you reference is the prime example. When pressed to present the actual data that he "collected", Dr. Lott had suddenly "misplaced" it. The raw data has not been "found" to this day. He also claims that a few of his graduate students helped him on the project. He has no list of these students. We don't know who they are and they have never been found. He also never published a paper based on that data. In order to publish, it must be independently peer-reviewed in order to establish its validity. The paper has never passed that step. A working-paper is available online, but nothing more. As it stands, Dr. Lott essentially fabricated the data.

"I would rather live with 1000 firearms accidents per 10,000 people and be free" -JR

Wow, that would mean about 31,000,000 accidents a year. You'd be "free" but in constant fear of being hit by a stray bullet. I wouldn't call that free. You'd also waste a lot of taxpayer money. A study determined that the average gunshot wound cost $17,000 in ER costs to initially treat, using late-1990s numbers. That number today would be over $40,000 per injury. Just for initial treatment. The same study revealed that half of those costs were borne by the taxpayer.

So 31 million injuries, $40,000 a piece, equals $1,3 trillion. Half of that is $650 billion. Per year.

I wonder if anyone has any statistics on how many lives or injuries are SAVED each year because someone had the ability to protect themselves with a gun? Or, on the other hand, how many WOULD have been saved if someone had the means to protect themselves at the time?

Let's ban lawn mowers. We have thousands of lawn mower accidents each year and I can't find a single incident where a lawn mower was used to stop an assault.

John Lott is a respected author whose work has been the foundation for may pro-gun legislative acts and the passage of concealed carry laws in many states.

I guess anyone that does not agree with Jack is a hack in his mind with no regard to credentials. This is not surprising as his posts on this thread have shown he cannot tolerate factual rebuttal to his opinions.

John Lott is far more respected than the Brady Campaign to prevent gun violence, Mayors against illegal guns, or violence policy center. John Lott's work is unassailable by anti-gun opponets which is evident in that a book or text promulgating the opposite has yet to be written. Even the most liberal anti-gun zealots run when Lott and his work is mentioned. Lott's work has been verified many times which is how and why he is able to update and publish newer and more up to date versions of his text every few years. If his work was flawed, people wouldn't buy or talk about his contributions. Of course liberal professors will say his work isn't up to par, but then again these same liberal professors fabricate data concerning topics like global warming or gun control with no research whatsoever. LOL!!

Another interesting point is John Lott was a liberal socialist himself until he began researching a topic that he thought to be slam dunk in favor of gun control. The more he researched, the more he found guns were involved in thwarting upwards of a million crimes a year. His methodology has stood the test of time, and many academics tout his work as a model study.

I find his work to be common sense as we can see that areas with more gun ownership ALWAYS see less crime. In fact, FBI statistics reveal that as gun ownership and concealed carry permits have risen dramatically in recent years, the violent crime rate has spiraled downward. And how do you lemmings explain that? You don't explain it, you run from it. The violent crime rate has stayed the same or risen in places like Chicago, New York City, or Washington DC where gun control is strictest. Isn't Chicago a utopia for you liberals? LOL!!! Same for Montreal as a matter of fact. Did you know the violent crime rate for El Paso, Texas is lower than that of Vancouver, B.C.? El Paso has many gun owners, and Vancouver has very few. El Paso is across the border from one of the most violent cities in the United States (Juarez) which has very strict gun control. Tough questions, tough questions.. LOL!

But hacks such as yourself will say, with typical viterol and venom, that Lott's study is bogus. We understand that liberal socialists rewrite history with whatever they disagree with. Were you born stupid or did you just get that way somehow? LOL!!!

And yes, I would rather live free with bullets flying than in bondage like they do in almost every other country in the world (Israel and Switzerland excepted). Since it has been shown, through Lott's excellant research, that guns thwart in upwards of a million crimes a year, we can surmise that guns actually save us money in emergency rooms.

Take the limeys you love so much as an example. England is becoming the new violent crime capital of Europe. Those eurotrash pansies (they remind me of canuks) banned guns only to have the hoped for utopia slide into knife, bat, and fist violence. Some in England try and salvage what's left of a once great culture by saying the violence is somehow better when a gun isn't involved. You would probably agree with them.

I say violence is violence and emergency rooms full of knife victims or gunshot wounds are all the same. What difference does it make that you're sliced to the bone with a machete or perforated with a .22. Violence is violence. The ability to defend against this violence is freedom. I know this is a concept lost upon lemming liberals such as yourself, but there are still a few red blooded Americans who value personal responsibility over servitude.

"The handgun appeared to be larger than normal handguns, it may have even been a semi automatic.....

Media is so sensitized to the "buzz words" that now, "semi automatic" is used to make a weapon sound like some kind of machine gun! My bet is that whatever the handgun used was, it was probably either a semi automatic or a revolver. I'm doubtful if it would have been a single action revolver and I'm willing to bet it wouldn't have been a muzzleloader or a single shot pistol!

Aborting children of rape victims. We seem to have some discussion supporting aborting of children who have been conceived through Rapes. If one believes that the child is innocent of the crime, then why is the product of the rape fair game to be eliminated while other newly conceived babies are not. Is it the fault of the child that the impregnation was without consent?

Mike Adams has an interesting take on this.... 'After we became engaged, Anna revealed a secret to me. I always knew she was adopted. But I did not know that when she was 32 years old she embarked on a mission to locate her biological mother. She did this so she could learn the reasons why she was given up for adoption. She did it for peace of mind but the result of her research was unsettling: Anna found out she was a product of rape.

When I found out the news, I acted immediately. I killed Anna while she was sleeping and then dumped for body off of Johnny Mercer’s pier at Wrightsville Beach. And now I face a long legal battle in which my lawyers will attempt to argue that Anna, as a product of rape, does not have the same rights as other persons. In fact, whatever rights she may possess are outweighed by a compelled need to destroy evidence of rape, which might remind a rape victim of a past sexual assault.

My argument will be simple: I believe that Anna was no more or less of a person as an adult than she was as an unborn child. Therefore, it would have been permissible to kill her at either stage of development so long as that killing was motivated by compassion for the victim of rape.'

Newguy, I am sure you will censor this post but i will make it none the less. If a woman is violently raped and traumatized by the event, i have no right what so ever to force her to carry the conception of that event to term and force even more pain and suffering on her.

To me her body her choice. If science finds a way for men to carry a fetus from conception to birth, then all the men wanting to impose their views on someone elses body can line up and volunteer to do so and give birth.

They do not have the "right" to murder an unborn child. A rape is not the child's fault. These women also do not have the "right" to commit suicide, so your argument that they can do what they like with their bodies fails on yet another level.

My mother taught me much of my value system. She agreed with me.

What if the baby this raped woman would have aborted was the person that would have discovered the cure for cancer? You can "what if" anything.

As an example of liberal thinking, does anyone find it telling that the mainstream media was quick to jump on the anti gun ban wagon (pun intended)over the shooting of 10 people at the Empire State Building. Unfortunately,they did not wait to find out that out of the 10 people, 9 were shot by police officers.

What happened to Yack/Rica? I see he cut and ran yet again. Which fact caused you the most problems Yack? My bet it was the fact El Paso has far less violent crime than Vancouver, Canada. LOL!! That was an inconvenient truth wasn't it? LOL!!! Typical liberal - run when the questions get tough.